Lost And Sound

Gwenno

• Paul Hanford • Episode 187

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Gwenno definitely lives through her art. I sat down with the musician and producer to trace a decade-long arc from home-built studios to a Mercury-nominated breakthrough, and into Utopia—an album that weaves Welsh, Cornish, and English into vivid, human pop. The conversation opens with a simple idea that grows larger as we go: language changes what music can say. Welsh brings political sharpness; Cornish opens a deep, interior cave of comfort and myth; English, returned to with intent, becomes a map of places, people, and time. Along the way, we talk about recording at home with Rhys Edwards, the porous line between family and work, and why songs feel more vital as the world gets more digital.

I found it really refreshing how Gwenno doesn’t hold back when it comes to talking taste, technology, and the future of culture. She pushes back on AI’s promise not with fear but with a clearer definition of progress: if a tool only accelerates the past, it can’t point to new worlds. We unpack Adam Curtis, Mark Fisher, and the feeling of living in a loop, then rediscover hope by looking at how scenes are actually made—people in spaces, collaging references into something surprising. That’s where psychedelia lives for her: in the crack where a wildflower appears, in non-linear time, in the human mistake that turns into the moment you remember.

Follow Gwenno on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/gwennosaunders

Buy / Listen to Utopia on Bandcamp

https://gwenno.bandcamp.com/album/utopia

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.

And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Speaker 3:

Stevie Wonder once said, music is a language into itself. And language is going to take many forms in the conversation you're about to hear. In a minute, with Gwenno. Hello, uh, so I wasn't here last week. Great to see you again. We're back. Lost and Sound, the show that goes deep with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. But before we get going, Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. For over 60 years, this family-run company has been making the kind of gear that helps artists, DJs, and listeners alike really hear the detail. Headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges, studio quality, beautifully engineered and designed and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audiotechnica.com to check out all of their range of stuff. Right, let's do the show. I'm Paul Hamford. I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster, and a lecturer, and each week I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity, and how they're navigating life through their art. So whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's great to have you along. And as I mentioned before, and as you're probably aware, there wasn't a show last week. I apologize about that. Sometimes you just get an extremely busy week, like I know you know what I mean, but we're back, and I've got a really fun and also pretty fucking deep chat for you today. I'm speaking with musician, producer, and artist Gwenno. Pre-What she does now, Cardiff born Gwenno Saunders spent years in the noughties performing in the Peppets before going on to make a series of acclaimed solo albums sung in Welsh, Cornish, and English, including her hugely acclaimed third album, Trezor, which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2022. We have a little bit of a chat about Trezor. Um, as you know, I'm in Berlin where Tresor means something. She recorded this album in Cornish and it means something very different there, but there's a sort of connecting point I think you might find that quite fascinating. Um Often Her Music explores language and identity and utopian ideas, and she does this through the kind of through a kind of dreamlike pop that at point recalls, to me anyway, that sort of hyper-aware, post-modernist, post-everything psychedelia of broadcast. Her latest album, Utopia, continues that exploration. So we'd met before, I've met Gwenno before. She'd been a guest on my London Fields radio show 10 years ago, back when I was living in East London, and that was when she was just releasing her debut album. So it's great to catch up with her now, four albums in, and I think over the last decade, she's really established, she's really set out her corner of the sphere, like her unique position of doing what she's doing. And yeah, so it was it was great to kind of catch up actually. Um, there's lots of stuff here we go into. A lot of it centers around language, psychedelia, quite a bit on AI, but essentially what binds it all together is what it means for her to be an artist, what art means, what the role of art means, big questions like that. Um I had loads of fun chatting with her. So a little bit of housekeeping as usual. If you like the show and you haven't already, please give a subscribe, give the show a rating and a view on the platform of your choice. It really, really, really, really does help. So, yes, we had this chat on Wednesday, September the 24th, 2025. Loved having this chat. This is what happened when I met Gwenno.

Speaker:

Hello, and hi. Hey, there I am. How are you doing?

Speaker 3:

Okay, I'm good, I'm good. How are you doing?

Speaker:

I'm good, I was thinking right. You were hosting a radio show in London Fields, right?

Speaker 3:

That's right, yeah. Uh 10 years ago. Um, yeah, we met Ben in a little coffee shop.

Speaker:

Yeah, I was lovely, I remember.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. So it's been it's been a hotel. How are you doing? Big big question, but yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah, good. I've just come back from the school run, so that's where we've got to. Um, and yeah, you know, still in Cardiff.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. How about you?

Speaker:

Where are you?

Speaker 3:

I'm I'm in Berlin now.

Speaker:

So amazing, I saw you did that book.

Speaker 3:

That's right. Yeah, I did this book Coming to Berlin, which uh came out about two or three years ago now.

Speaker:

You know what? We were what's his name? Is it Mark? What's his name? Mark Reda. Mark Reader, because we we got really obsessed with Mark Reader a few years back because we love Berlin. Um, and Therese had been in touch with him because he wanted to do like the some radio project or something, and it didn't work out, but they you know, they've been in touch fantastic. And that film that he did B movie. Oh, fab.

Speaker 3:

It's so good, isn't it?

Speaker:

Yeah, so you've just been hanging out with him and just getting to know.

Speaker 3:

So we met 10 years ago um in doing a radio show in a cafe.

Speaker:

Are you recording? So you're recording. Oh, you are, sorry. Yeah, yeah, that's all good. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3:

Um all good. And that was just when you had released your first solo album. And I'm gonna probably so please apologize. I apologize in advance about this, about the pronunciation.

Speaker:

Um please don't. It's fine.

Speaker 3:

Um, Adith Olaf.

Speaker:

Adith Olaf. That's pretty good.

Speaker 3:

Close. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's one of those sort of like cards that you hang around your neck as an English person of just the fact that everyone speaks English. So you're basically like, we're all a bunch of like little Lord Faunteroys, and when we have to push ourselves, I mean, I'm talking about myself here. I, you know, I've got no right to speak for someone else, but I definitely feel no matter how left-leaning I am, I I living in Berlin, this sort of colonial past comes out of me where my pronunciation of everything is just fucking terrible, you know. But that aside, I mean, so you just you're basically just beginning like the the gweno that we know now. Um and that was 10 years ago, really. And there's been like four albums now. I mean, what do you think? I mean, it's such a big question, but what do you think looking back over those 10 years has been the biggest change that you've gone through in that time?

Speaker:

In what way?

Speaker 3:

Uh let's say musically, really.

Speaker:

Musically, right? Well, that's an interesting question. I think, do you know what? I feel as an artist, you're constantly responding to the time and the place, and through that you transformed only because you learn and you evolve. That's a really, really vague way of answering the question. But um, I think you know, from the beginning to now, I mean, I'm always working with Teresa Edwards as a producer. Um, so that's um a creative relationship that's been constant over the past decade or more, which has been fantastic, and I feel like that's really, really evolved. And there's something in that because it's almost like being in a band, really, a band of two, and then people, you know, people come in and out um of that process in the recording um part of it. I mean, from a practical point of view, you learn techniques, but I think what's evolved for me as well is that I think that I started off taking a more electronic abstract approach to songwriting. And what I found over time is that I've become more and more obsessed with the idea of a song, and I think that that is in response to how digital our lives have become and how much I value what a human being can make outside of that, not to be a lead out about it, but I just think I I still think that perhaps the greatest thing that we have to share as a musician is that the performance of music um in perhaps uh just a less digital way, and I say that as an electronic musician, um, but I'm I've always been interested in that relationship, and I think that I think that's where I've evolved to, and I think that using uh three languages, so Cornish, Welsh, and English, has um allowed me to explore the different perspectives of of what that means in the context of each other, because I've always felt that those languages are completely tied to each other, they're on they're from the same land mass, so they're constantly in conversation with each other. So I think that having this past decade to explore that has given me a deeper and a greater understanding of how language and culture influences our existence and the way that we understand each other. Um, so it's been a great journey in that sense because that's what music is for. It's sort of it's a portal into a world that explains people to you without having to speak in a it's another, it's that like it's the language, it's the international language of human beings. So it's been a great space to explore that and not to get to the bottom of it. So that's why I'm not sure how much I've learned, you know. I've done a lot of practicing and I've done a lot of exploring, but I wouldn't, you know, I've sort of I've learned a lot along the way, but I'm not sure. I certainly am not any wiser for it.

Speaker 3:

I think that's a really wise thing to say, paradoxically, to say you're not the wiser for it.

Speaker:

Oh, yes, the older you get, the the the more you know that, you know. I wish I had the uh the ignorance of youth, but I don't, unfortunately.

Speaker 3:

So I mean that there's so much to unpack with what you said there. There's so much good stuff there. And like, I mean, one thing you mentioned was just picking up on them was that you mentioned about how music's a portal. And I think it works when you're an artist, it works for two on two ways. You know, like it's what your connection is with putting music out and and the connection with like people listening, but it's also the connection of what it gives you yourself when you're making it, you know. And you know, you you've gone on obviously gone on a real journey in the last 10 years, and partly you you mentioned about Reese, who's also your life partner as well, you know. I mean, how is the balance of like balancing like the professional and the personal with with with a person, you know, over a period of time? Are there things that you have to do to kind of like boundaries that you have to sort of set between your no boundaries at all?

Speaker:

Um I think as well with every person's relationship, it's that relationships are constantly evolving, and I think what is fascinating, and it's been such a journey, I think, with House, is that there are so many strings to our, you know, I I don't know how you'd say it in English, like there's so many sort of streams to our relationships, and I think I mean I think that's the same for many people, whether they're in a sort of personal relationship or not. Um, and I found that really fascinating because one nourishes the other and it sort of just all works out, and I think there's definitely no boundaries in terms of like I do not switch off because I am constantly thinking about the work and I'm constantly thinking and being inspired, so I don't really like have time out or anything like that. I did garden a little bit during the pandemic, which was lovely. Um it's a bit of a mess now because I've had a second child, but it it you know, I I sort of nothing's a hobby, you know? Because I, you know, if I'm reading or if I'm watching or if I'm listening, it's because I'm just like just taking it all in and like what have they done here? What are they up to you know? Like they so um and I think as an art I mean I I see myself as an artist and I think we can all be artists, you know, it's not sort of an exclusive club that I'm a part of at all, but I see myself as an artist every day and every second of every day. So I don't see myself and you know, I I'm an artist and a mother, and I'm and I you know, and I'm an artist and everything else, but there's no boundary there, really, because it's just how I live every day, and actually what's kind of informed that as well, I think, is the fact that we've recorded everything at home, yeah, most you know. So it's sort of all come out of the home, which I for me was really important because I didn't have a particularly stable upbringing and I didn't really have that sense of home. So I think that was really important. And actually, meeting Chris and making uh you know my solo records coincided with me being able to establish my own family and my own home because it was just something really, really important. In that actually, I only now realize how important that was and how I subconsciously went on that journey, you know. You know, going back to Wales, you know, leaving London for that reason and trying to find out what my roots were in my own culture, exploring that. It's such a personal journey that was really necessary from um a psychologist particularly, you know. It's like we do the things we need to do without knowing why a lot of the time. And I can now look back on how important and how nourishing the whole journey's been. And there are no boundaries because art is life is music, is life, you know. Yeah, I don't see them as separate at all, and I feel very grateful that I've had that opportunity to take that journey on it because I think that so often um, and it's all depends, you know, and we all f strike our own balance, but I think there can be a certain pressure to not have anything else going on, and actually music feeds into your life, you know, and and I and my children have you know, this is me, everyone has their own journey, yeah. But my children inform me, and my children are fascinating, and they are they they're they're nourishing people, and so it informs the stability that you feel in why you're creating as well, um, as long as you find a little bit of space to do it, which is not always easy when you've got time children, but you know, it's it's that's life, life is it's the whole the whole of your life is important, and I think the happier you are and the more stable that you are, and the more time that you give to everything, perhaps the warmer the feeling that you can share. But that's that's just my journey, you know. So and ever and that's the great thing about art and music, is everyone's got their own story to share, and that's my tone.

Speaker 3:

Very beautifully put. I I've I think um I love what you're saying about like art, really is basically it's it's just part of life, really, isn't it? And it's yeah, like yeah, I mean, I definitely think like some people kind of create um a big divide between the two, and it worked might work for them really well. But also sort of think like the the way, like you know, like you know, you're saying you can sit down and watch a film, or you know, and then that goes through somehow. There's something you know, you're you're all there's always like a filter on, I find everything totally isn't everything informs, you know.

Speaker:

Walking down the street, we hear a conversation in Jesco, it's like everything informs what you're doing, and I think it's I'm not gonna be anything else, like I I it's all all I'm all I want to do for the rest of my day is is to take in the world around me and try and process it and turn turn it into something because I feel like a documentary maker a lot, like I always think that like my records are like documentaries, like musical documentaries. That's something I've been thinking a lot about recently because I have this feeling that I have to note everything down because we don't know what's happening next, do we? And I feel like we're at this like a real turning point at this point, it's like a really like critical point in world order and in the way that we're um arranging ourselves. And for me as a musician and an artist, I think I'm sort of compelled to document it all. So I'm like, but I have to get this shit down because who knows what's happening next, and at least it's it's there, and you know, it might it might get lost in the mix, it might not, you know, reach the people that love to hear it or might enjoy hearing it. It's not that because I think that's another whole conversation. Um, but it's just going, well, I made the document and I said I was there, and this is how I saw it. You know, it's like making documentaries, so yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that recently. Like what's compelling me to keep documenting, and I think that's what it is. I mean, like, and I think that comes from like you know, having Welsh, having having Cornish and English as languages, and kind of wanting to just make an observation about the time and place that I lived in. Because I think that's what I get from music, you know. When I listen to a song, I just when I was talking to Theresa about this, because when I listen to a song, I want to know how it happened, when it happened, and where. Like, that's my like immediately I'm like, I'm imagining. And if I I need to get that information, that's why I love music journalism. I music writing of any kind, so like I need to know like full details of that whole situation, and I get really, and that just like it just sort of it just then opens this whole new world to you. And it's funny because she says it's like I don't need to know anything about an artist, like I don't need to know anything. He he just loves, he's just in the sound, and he's like, This sound is just like the best side. So he's playing me something um this morning, and I was just like, So who's this? Where's she from? What do you know? I said, I've no idea, I've just no idea. I've been listening to music for about two or three years, and I've no idea, and I literally don't need to know.

Speaker 3:

And you couldn't do that yourself, you'd be like, I'd have to find it.

Speaker:

I'd literally need to know everything, like I can't, but I think that comes from my documentary making because it's like that's what I'm interested in. It's like whole worlds, and she she probably has a whole world. Do you know what I mean? Like, she's an artist that obviously can touch people with her music, so clearly she's having this impact, and she has a whole world, but she doesn't want to know about it. It's just like I don't need to know. It's not gonna enhance the music for me in any way. I don't because I'd be like reading every interview, I'd be reading everything, like I'd be just like I just get really obsessive about pieces of music, and I just want to know everything that's happened. How is how's this happened? But I think that's like there's something less common about that now, perhaps at this just in this period, and I don't think you know, because it's like you know, times and places are not as relevant in the same way, you know, it's not it's not a a grotti venue in downtown wherever that's like you know, created all of this stuff. But you know, again, I don't think this period's gonna last forever. You know, nothing does, does it? So I I sort of feel slightly more hopeful at the moment that it's gonna be this nightmare's gonna be over soon.

Speaker 3:

Yes, this nightmare. I know you you're talking about like the the world, what's going on in the world. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. It's just this comes up quite a lot at the moment, like with guests, but also just like just generally every day, you know.

Speaker:

You're you're like, oh, I was if you see did you watch the Adam Curtis documentary?

Speaker 3:

I've not seen it yet, I've not seen the latest one yet.

Speaker:

It's really good. I mean, I am such a massive Adam Curtis fan, I find him really grounding, and he is an artist too, so I'm not taking everything as literally, and actually for me, what I get more so more from his documentaries is a feeling, um, and I think feelings is how we operate.

Speaker 3:

Totally, yeah. He works in a very like I mean, the other person that comes up a lot in connection with him to me is like Mark Fisher.

Speaker:

Liz, I mean, we're living at this very point now, we are living in Mark Fisher's nightmare, yeah. But but it's not gonna last forever. Everything changes constantly, and I feel very positive all of a sudden, because I watched the whole documentary, right, about the demise of the UK, and you just like you just remember, you know, from the obviously from the 80s onwards, I was like, oh yeah, and then they're just like every there's uh our neighbours like, oh, I've only watched the first one, and I hope it gets better. And it's like it just gets worse, it gets worse and worse and worse, so it's five times, it just keeps getting worse, like a spiral, it's just a spiral, it's just a spiral into a nightmare. Um, and then then I was then I saw that watch the fifth one, and I was like, surely there's another one because this is terrible. And it wasn't. I was like, oh my god, what am I gonna do? And I sort of walked around for a couple of days going, I feel very Mark Fisher right now, like beyond, like I totally because I I think for me, like with capitalist realism, I remember reading that book and thinking, and this is my thought, right? Because I responded a lot to that kind of thinking at the time with what I was doing, going, yeah, but maybe maybe there would Mark Fisher would have felt more hope if he wasn't just an English speaker, if he had another language, because in my mind, I was just kind of like, what other languages, particularly minority languages, have or had actually I'll say had at that point, say a decade, 15 years ago, for me was another point of view and another perspective on what was happening, and in that there was more hope there, and that's and it's part of the reason why I pursued those languages that I already had, because I thought, oh hang on, this is untapped, this is a step away from neoliberalism and like capitalism in a way, because it's not a cap, you know, it's not used for commerce, it's a sort of a community language and an educational language, but really it's not the language of commerce, which I think English is as well as other things because it's enormous. Um, but what's happened from my perspective gradually is that neoliberalist tentacles and tsunami has gradually just taken over everything. Like I you can't like I find that within sort of Welsh language culture, whatever. Where there was at this perhaps 10 years ago, 15 years ago, a sense of otherness and a sense of non-conforming about the culture, it's now been sucked right into the whole nightmare that we're living. Um so I don't think so. So that's the point that I reached. I was like, okay, literally like the end of this Adam Curtis documentary. I was like, right, well, I definitely, I mean, I'm I'm here now. I I have other languages that have nothing to do with in in a direct way with this, and I still don't see hope. So I totally get it. But then I was watching, he did an interview um with for the rest is entertainment or the rest is you know, Matt Osman and Laura Hyde do it, really amazing, right?

Speaker 3:

I think it's the rest is entertainment, I'm not sure.

Speaker:

It's just yeah and they did it right, so they interviewed him, it was amazing. And then a couple of things he said. Number one, he was like, AI isn't the future, it's just the past. And I was like, Yes, because I've been respectfully, reluctantly respecting, not respecting, reluctantly not dismissing AI and feeling slightly intimidated by it because everyone keeps talking about that it's the future, and I'm like, oh god, it's the future, Jesus Christ. I'm sort of a little bit intimidated and a bit scared by this, and I probably should just keep my mouth shut and just accept it. And then he was like, Yeah, but all AI is doing is skimming off the past, so it's like an acceleration of the internet, basically, it's like an acceleration of Google, it's just an acceleration of your own brain being able to find that information and put it all together. So, like, there's nothing progressive about it, and actually, I think that's why we're we're feeling more and more depressed because the new technology that's being used and presented to us is like the future, it's still the past. You're just like, but this doesn't suggest change, it just suggests a more conservative world and a more like measured world and a more controlled world, like it's nothing about it suggests a future, and then so then I was kind of like I can I can say AI is shit now, actually. I can say this is this is a pile of shit, and actually, you know, I see constant arguments online going like, oh, you know, it makes great music or it doesn't make great music, it's bad for artists. I personally think that if you're listening to AI music and think that thinking that's fine, and you're just in a really bad place already, I think it's it's dangerous from a um a psychological point of view. I think listening to bad music is bad for you, and I'm and bad music is like bad intentions, and I mean bad intentions by capitalist intentions that are there to just just suck your soul, and there that music I call it music, but that that sort of culmination of different sounds does exist, you know, that that sort of drive with using sound exists and it's not good, and it's not good for the people that listen to it. Um but I think yeah, this sort of yeah, so I'm sort of I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful because I think that's actually shit. And I loved that, and because that was the other thing, like I went to um I saw the Blitz Kids um exhibition at the design museum, yeah, which is fantastic, okay. And one thing that really stood out to me was that they were influenced by everything, so they were going, right, we'll take a bit of this and a bit of this and a bit of this and a bit of this. And what's happened in the past 25 years is that we've all made been made to feel that making references is bad because it's retro or it's retromania, and actually, people have always referenced the past. Like I'm reading a great book, um Granny Takes a Trip about the boutique on the King's Road. Yes, yeah. Paul Gorman, it's brilliant. They would, you know, they would they were taking from Victorian times, they were taking from like all like as human beings, that's what we do, and particularly as artists, it's okay. And I think there has been this underlying feeling in the past quarter of a century of like you can't reference the past, otherwise, that's really retro and you're being too nostalgic. And it's like, but that's what everyone's always done, like that's what art is, but the the missing the missing part of it is space, and that's the point that really hit me when I when I went to the split club exhibition, was the fact everyone was in the same room, so they were sticking, like you know, weird combinations of influences together, and it was existing within a physical space, and that's all that's missing. It was that sort of eccentric putting together of culture and curating of culture, is what makes the culture, and I sort of got excited about that because I was like, I love the past, I absolutely love the past, it was like full of good stuff. I can't I can't ignore the past, and like what is the present and the future anyway? So I think it there's something to remember, I think, in a time of change and transformation, and we're when we're made to be dismissive of our own histories culturally, as like you can't do that. I think there's always a new combination, and AI is making it worse because what AI does is disgusting, it pulls things together in an awful way and a really uncool way because very uncool people have made it that have zero taste. This is the point, you know. Yeah, and this is my point with tech bros, they're fucking uncool, they're like the uncoolest kids ever.

Speaker 3:

Like you see like those pictures of like Elon Musk. I mean, he looks like a dick now, but like you see pictures of him when he was younger.

Speaker:

He looked like honestly, this was what struck me, okay. When I went to see that Blitz exhibition, and I was looking at Steve Strange, and I thought, that guy had it, okay. This guy knew what the future was, he had all of the past, and he told you what the future was, and that's why he was amazing. Matt Zuckerberg, whatever, he'll never have that. He'll never it doesn't matter how much he controls the world and the world culture, soft culture, he will never have that. He's not that guy, he doesn't he doesn't have it. It doesn't matter what he does.

Speaker 3:

Because he doesn't, because like I think with all of the tech bros, what they're looking for is just the bottom line, you know. They yeah, they'll absorb culture.

Speaker:

They're looking for approval too. Yeah, you know, they they only want to make a lot of money because they want a lot of influence and they want a lot of power, because deep down they know they've got nothing. Thing to give us, and they're trying to control it, and they're making this absolute nightmare. And I'm just it it sort of gives me going to that blitz club expression gave me a bit of hope because I just thought these guys are never gonna be cool. And tell you what, being and I say cool, and I you know we're talking about Mark Reader to we're talking about people that know that know what the culture is and what it needs to do next, okay? Those people are special people, we know that because we love them, we're fans of them, and they're not that, so it's like they don't have the future. Can control it for a little bit, and I suggest pray to God the internet just dies at some point because it's just a nightmare, but like you know, they haven't got the answer to anything, and like if they don't if you don't have the answer to culture, you don't have the answer because culture's what makes life worth living. Do you know what I mean? And I think that's why we feel like we're living in such a nightmare, because it's just this bombardment and the way they've like we're just living in their world, and their world's hideous, it's hideous, and like they're trying to control it, and they're using really basic ways of manipulating culture and manipulating us emotionally to respond to things, and it's just bullshit, and it's not cool. And I'm a mass, I just I'm a believer there are people out there, both young and old, they've got the answers, and just sort of I'm focused on that at the moment. From my this is this has been my sort of weekend experience. I'm just sharing with you what I've just been up to, but it's I've just I've I've had a lot of different sort of engagement with things, and it's been a real turning point for me because I felt very, very depressed about everything for a while, you know, as we all have, you know. Yeah, but I know it's this world order, like it has to come to an end. I think fundamentally, the the setup, the capitalist setup, that one percent, all of that uh driven by arms and and territories and all of that stuff has got to come to an end. And I I mean we've arranged ourselves again in in the past, so we can do it, we can do it, but it's sort of working out what the it's trying to focus on the conversation, I think, that gives you hope.

Speaker 3:

I think yeah, yeah. I mean, um, so much of what you're saying though, like I mean, one thing that picked up when when you were talking about like the Zuckerbergs not being cool, and I'm I know that you're not being flippant, and I'm not being flippant here when we're talking about this, but did you watch Succession? And no, uh, okay, I won't go in there. There's a worth it's a it's worth it. There's a there's a whole section in it about one of the main characters is this guy called Kendall Roy, and he's sort of the most sympathetic character in it, but he's kind of based on like a business bro, and he holds this 40th birthday party that's the most indulgent, pitiful thing. It's basically what happens when someone that doesn't understand, has no human connection with art, tries to do like a kind of warhole experience, and it becomes this thing that eats him. It's this becomes this thing that leads to this like pitiful creature emerging out of. Like, you know, it makes me think of like if um, you know, like what is going on in Elon Musk's head when when you know he's he's making these decisions to buy certain companies because it gives him some kind of QDOT and it gives him some kind of control, and he's never gonna get it.

Speaker:

The control he's gonna get. It's control he's probably gonna get.

Speaker 3:

But you know, you don't you don't earn respect through through force. I think all of these that they're this has all been done through force, really, or or like a lack of choice, you know. And I think what you know, with singing in English, Welsh, and Cornish, you know, you are offering this kind of alternative. How how do you see that like um in terms of like, you know, because a lot of people listening won't be following the languages themselves. What do you see that it gives people language?

Speaker:

Oh, it's been fascinating. That's the other thing. I I feel I mean, I feel really lucky that I have these languages from birth. I haven't had to learn them ever. I haven't had to think about it. So it's not that I'm a linguist and I'm interested in minority languages in the UK. Just not at all. But it's just I happen to have them.

unknown:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And I think what I found fascinating is the um identity each language has. Like, for example, I think that I was coming out the tail end of the naughs, which is like naught is like a good, you know, word to attach to that period that was quite flippant and lacking in substance. And that's kind of what it was all about, you know. No one had a political opinion about anything, everyone's just having a good time. Last time, really, that young people went for it and didn't get seen doing too much, but it's pretty empty, you know. No one was talking about politics. We were you were sort of riding on the tail end of the Labour Party. Everyone thinking, oh well, it it must be kind of okay until the until that financial crash happened in 2008, and then it was like, oh shit, oh right, yes, oh god, everyone's on like zero hour hours contracts. I'm working in a pub and there's no gigs, fuck, you know. Um so and I don't know why I've started there, but I do feel like it's important.

Speaker 3:

Roll it on, roll it on, it's great.

Speaker:

Roll it on, and then I was like, I was really responding to because then I made a record about a future where AI and tech bros um control us and turn us into clones, and it's it was written in 1968 by nuclear scientist, so I know I'm and it was and it's a very scientific box, quite dry, but brilliant, and it's sort of about now.

Speaker 3:

And this is your first album. This is the first album.

Speaker:

My first album, and actually, so I was responding to the emptiness of the noughties with that record because I was like, Yeah, but the culture I'm from isn't vapid, like it's not, and musically it's not. When I go back and think about all the Welsh bands that have come out, um, particularly Welsh language bands, it's substantial, you know. People are talking about the shit that's going on, they're not just like I'm having a great time and like you look hot, you know. And which I think is a shame too, because I think there needs to be more of that if I'm honest. But anyway, so so I think there was that was a response to it. So then I figured in a way that the Welsh language, for me at least, had a very political identity as a language, and I think that that's my journey with it, and you know, other people can make Welsh language music about love in a more traditional sense, really, really well. But I don't I can't do that. I I it's kind of it comes down to politics always with the Welsh language, even with you know, I've done a song for the um recent records about a cat, but really it's about you know borders and admiring cats for just ignoring them all because they shouldn't be ignored, you know. So it's still it's still political, really. Then I obviously had the Cornish language, and I was like, I know this is interesting because when I talk to people from England, they go, I love Cornwall, I go there on a holiday to go there on a holiday every summer. And I was like, hmm, this is interesting. Because actually, you're only seeing one side of Cornwall, like there's a lot of shit going on in Cornwall that you don't know about that. Sort of in line, this is Celtic countries in line with Wales many ways, but it's a very independent place, it's like it has the oldest border in Europe that's and it hasn't been moved, it's got this amazing history, and I was like, Oh, this is exciting. Now I'm getting to explore like 1500 years of hit of history, and I just had it at hand, you know, it was stuff I taught as a kid, and I had the books, and I was just like, you know, it came out in a week. I wrote the whole record in a week because I was just like, I know this shit, and it's really interesting, and no one knows about it. This is awesome. Um, and you can go back, and that's that thing of feeling like you know, I'm talking about you know, an uprising that had in 1484 and stuff, and it's like, oh, this is awesome! Like I'm just in a different time here, and I'm just there. Then it sort of got a bit deeper with Trezor because I was just like, the Courtish language allowed me to get to a place that was so isolated that I I was in a dark, I literally felt like I was in this dark room on my own, and like so much of Trezor, which is my third album, is to do with being in this empty space, but being able to ex it's almost like an empty nightclub cave kind of vibe in my mind. Um I'm talking to ghosts, a lot of ghosts, because I went to St Ives and I recorded it, but what I felt that it became like my deepest, most like my inner world, and I think when I particularly when I'm making Cornish, I tap into this, and it's a and I'm not I don't want to be like simplistic about Cornwall because I haven't lived there and it's fucking hard to live in Cornwall, and I know that from the people that I know um and and I have known all my life, but there is a magic to Cornwall, there's a magical element to Cornwall in the landscape and the people and the culture, um, and I think it's just geographical, it has like 99.9% of the minerals of the world in it, like in the ground. Um and I think that it radiates that and it people respond, and I think that there's a reason why there's been artist colonies and why people are think of you know, and sort of more occult stuff has happened there. And I just felt like that really tapped into this like this the deepest, darkest feeling inside, but also comfort because my dad is the one that gave us comfort as children, and through that, because he's you know, spoke Cornish to us and shared, and he's a poet and and a and a story writer and and like a novelist and stuff. So he'd shares, he'd write stories for us and stuff. So he really created this magical world. So it also makes me think of childhood and um just the the the biggest comfort you can think of, and that's where find my comfort is in the Cornish language emotionally, and that's what I I explore really. Absolutely. It's a very instinctive place, and I and I love it. There's a sort of magic. I did a couple of songs the other day, um, just for a session, and then I did the Cornish song, and I was like, oh it feels really magical, like it just feels magical. It's like, and I don't know, I can't explain it, and I feel really, really lucky that I have that language. It's like 500 people speak it fluently, so it's just like you know, crazy. Wow, um but then I got to the point where Trezana's like everything I say no one understands, and that's really fucking lonely. And I have I love words, I love how people can articulate a time and place, and I can understand. Like I I love lyrics, and I was like I wonder what'll happen if I write in English again. Like I hadn't written, and then I was like, okay, if I apply the principles of what I've learned from singing in Welsh and Cornish to English, what happens? And that's what I did because I sort of thought about well, where have I used the English language and what's mattered? What's what what moment has had or place has had an impact on me in this language that I couldn't tell you about in Cornish or Welsh, and that informed the record, and that's why I made the record that I did. Then what happened was is like I started thinking about everywhere that I'd lived and all the people that I'd met, and then I ended up writing this record, there's like a quarter of a century documentary of just one one old gal, you know, from Wales who went and travelled around a bit and came home, you know? Yeah, that's kind of what it is.

Speaker 3:

Because like I mean, on on the Trezor point, I'm I love the fact that like I believe in uh Cornish it means treasure.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Where I live in in Germany, uh it kind of means like sell. From what you were saying, it feels like you know, you're talking about both things at the same time, how something can be like in some ways, like the the sort of loneliness of maybe like a language that you know, like can't outside of 500 people, people can't speak fluently, you know, and in expressing yourself in this, and there's a certain limit around that. Um, but in the other hand, this kind of mysticism and and deepness and like archive of thousands of years of collected souls and stories that go into that, you know.

Speaker:

It's exactly that.

Speaker 3:

It's a really interesting combination of things, you know.

Speaker:

And I will come back to it, and I think for me as well, with having three languages, I come back to them, you know, it's like it's so great to have come back with fresh, a fresh take, because you know, I couldn't have made an English rec language record until now because I feel grounded in myself and in why I'm doing it. Because I'm as as a minority language speaker, I'm conscious of like how how much of a compromise that could feel to me, not to anybody else, just to myself. So it was being able to be emotionally mature enough to go at it from an artistic point of view, like an art point of view, like really think about, you know, do it instinctively, but be able to explain to yourself why you've done it um conceptually, because I I conceptualize everything, you know, it's like I have to be quite thorough about why I've done anything, and it just felt like it was the right point to get to there, um, from the records that I'd done already.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, and so we're talking about utopia here, and um, I think one of the through lines with your work as well, um, I can really feel particularly I say on the opening track of Utopia, is this like really rich sense of psychedelia that goes on in your music. And I think psychedelia can mean different things to different people. And I was just wondering what it means for you.

Speaker:

I think it's that space in between for me that allows for new things to flourish. So when I think of psychedelia, I think of um it's almost like cracks in an it's like cracks in a world or an object that allows for you know what people would deem to be weeds that aren't, they're just sort of wildflowers to emerge from, and then that becomes this other thing. And I mean, that's to me when I'm thinking about it like visually as music and how things spring out of it. I think that that I would say, and that the the feeling of um time not being linear, which I'm really, really obsessed with the idea of at the moment, and I think that it's just reflected again in the in the world that we've created digitally, is this idea that I've always thought of time as quite cyclical, and I feel like that in my own life in a way that I sort of go like in a circle rather than I I I I and especially and the reason I think that is because throughout my work I've engaged with artists that are not what we deem to be alive, whereas I don't see them as not being alive because they are talking to me, and particularly when I make a record, and and you know, particularly um with the Cornish Records, is that Eiffel Calhoun, who's um an occult a surrealist occult artist, she has an exhibition at the tape recently, um, has been hugely influential on me, but it's like she it felt like she was around the corner, and if I kind of wanted to call her and ask for a chat, she'd be there. Like I I feel that a lot. Um Peter Lanyan's another, like I this sort of and I think it's just that the zone that and it comes back to psychedelia again, it's like it's the zone that you're in when you're creating, and we're all creating this. Is not an exclusive talent that I think it's it's uh an absolute part of every human being's nature, in my opinion, that we have this other sense and tentacles to things that perhaps uh we don't understand, and an artist's role really is to translate those things into things that other people that inspire other people because you know for me, the best art, the best music is the one that makes me go and do it myself, unless excited by art that leaves me in awe. Um because I I I don't find it as useful, um, but maybe I maybe I'm being selfish and immature. I don't know.

Speaker 3:

But I think No, but I think that goes back into that sense you're talking about about being always in art and making art, but also living through art. It's like you do need things that are gonna get you to go, um, you know, I've just heard a piece of music. How did they do that? Like, or I just heard, like I've read this poem, you know, I I have like a response to that. Like I have some ways.

Speaker:

But totally, and I think that's the thing. Like, so you know, say, like, obviously, I'm not gonna go see Michelangelo and go, oh yeah, I'll just go and do that. Like, and it's and because I can't do that, it means his art's not valid. But what there is so much about the way he is as an artist that you can learn from. That's what I mean. I think if you're if your if your art is useful when people can take something from it for themselves as the receptor of it in any way, that's when I get excited. And I think that that's the value of art, in my opinion. It's it's a catalyst for other arts and other ways of being. That's the point of it. It's a really useful, that's the thing that's that like annoys me, like in this weird world we live in, where like people feel think that art is like a superfluous thing or some kind of extra. Like, no, it's like it's a crucial part of evolution because art is the art is the being able to imagine other worlds, like that's the point of art, is that it helps you imagine those other futures. And if it if it doesn't do that, I'm not sure if it's art, something else. It's craft, it's whatever, it's nice, but it's not art, it's not transport. Art is transformative, totally.

Speaker 3:

And I think that the psychedelia is sometimes to me, it feels like the space between the things, you know, it's it's that sort of it's the feeling, is the it's the gap, you know. You mentioned about the cracks in the ground and the gaps. It's it's like, yeah.

Speaker:

But that's the thing inner space, the space between, inner space, but also it's the human, it's because I think so much like when we're making music, and particularly what we both of us, you know, we come from very different places, um, musically, but sonically, it's about hearing the human moment in things, and like that's why the bands that I love, I love you know, I think a broadcaster being the main example of that, is that it's allowing for and like and someone like me, uh Michael Levi as well, like it's just allowing those mistakes to dictate what happens, and actually, again, to come back to as a response to um the world and and and pristine digital world that we're living in at the moment, and sort of uh distance world that we're living in, is those elements that are really, really exciting that only human beings can make, and actually it's those mistakes, and again, that's a psychedelic thing in a way, because it's like, oh, this gone, yeah, okay. You know, it's that's where the magic lies, and that's where the future lies. Um, I think.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, very beautifully put. And and just rounding up, like what would you say if you were look looking back on your life, like when like way before you went solo, way before the pipettes, you know, way back to like perhaps that period just before you were talking about about the early 2000s, you know, back before then into the 90s. Um like flashback scene in a film.

Speaker:

I can do that, like I'm living in that, it's crazy.

Speaker 3:

It's weird. Well, if you're so do you would you say like you sort of do you feel like you could commune with yourself from the past?

Speaker:

Yeah, totally, and the thing I feel for me as well is like I don't feel any different, and people say this, you know. Remember, people say, I genuinely don't. Like so much about making utopia, really, was about acknowledging everyone I've been, um, because I I've got an affection for all the people I try to be, and actually it was coming from a genuine place, and I think that happened, that's all of us, you know. I don't have this like, oh wow, that's that wasn't I can explain myself in every period, and I'm I can stand by that person that was trying to exist, so I don't feel some people it's funny because I do find that like because I'm a parent and stuff, like you see people and they've like become like perhaps what a parent should be, or like, and I it's always strange to me because and I think it's because I'm an artist and I don't care, but like this sort of roles that we all take on in society is like, well, I'm supposed to be in my 40s now, so I'm going to be very, very authoritative, and I'm gonna and I just and it sort of always baffles me because I think yeah, but I still if I feel the same inside, like I'm still the same soul inside. Like, how do I but that's just acting? Like, why are you acting? Like, why are we all acting like roles? Like it's so it's a boring, it's boring anyway, and it's really exhausting. Like, I can't that's why some sometimes people, and it's not because of how I look, but some people go, Oh gosh, I didn't realize you were that age, and you're like, and it's it's mostly because I don't behave like I'm that age.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we're talking about the cycles as well, like the living living a very cyclical life, you know.

Speaker:

That that that's like a non-linear approach where you know you totally it's a part of you, you carry it around with you. Totally.

Speaker 3:

I go, I go for I think I connect with that as well. I I I feel like there are phases in my life, but they they ebb and flow. It's always me, but there'll be like a I'll come round to like a phase that that is like an like something that happened like 15 years ago, or or like a period that I was going through 15 years ago or 20 years ago or five years ago, and I'm like, oh, I'm back in this phase again. You know, it's like oh this, you know, this is familiar to me, you know, this situation, this this way of again this loads and all it's oh totally, yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah, it's funny. Gosh, yeah. You don't lose those parts of yourself though, and it's okay. You don't need to grow out of anything. I mean, grow out of being self-destructive and not very confident, like definitely try and grow out of that. But the rest of it, don't you don't need to grow out that sort of thing.

Speaker 3:

Grow grow out of like not eating before you go out, things like that, you know. The things that you learn to just go.

Speaker:

Oh my god, yeah. I'm thinking like people, you know, grow out of like being intimidated by people that are just really brash and loud and pretend they know what they're talking about, like grow out of that because no one knows what they're talking about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. And I think also, I mean, it might be a bit like sort of I you know, um, grow out of feeling that like the piece of whatever I'm working on at the moment has to be finished as soon as possible. Um, I mean, I and that's a very easy thing for me to say. I think someone may be beginning their journey, they need that sense of urgency, you know. Um, so maybe don't grow out of that. I'm I'm glad I've grown out of it now. I think back then, maybe exactly.

Speaker:

Yeah, grow out of the bad stuff that's holding you back. Kind of keep the good stuff that made you sprightly and excited and enthusiastic.

Speaker 3:

Definitely. Gweno, thanks so much. Thank you.

Speaker:

I feel like we had the therapy session there. It's great.

Speaker 3:

It sometimes happens like that. It sometimes happens.

Speaker:

Hey, it's really great to see you.

Speaker 3:

Really great to see you today. Okay, so that was me, Paul Hanford, talking with Gweno Saunders for the Lost and Sound podcast. And we had that chat on September the 24th, 2025. Thank you so much, Gweno, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. Utopia, Gweno's fourth album is out now on Heavenly Recordings. And there's also a really nice Cornelius remix of the track Utopia that is out now. Um if you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. Not always going about it every week, but it really, really, really, really does help. Uh, massively appreciated. Appreciate you just for listening and making it this far through. And yeah, so if you like what I do and you want to check out more of what I do, you can listen to my BBC radio documentary, The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across the Berlin Wall, by heading on over to the BBC Sounds app or on the BBC World Service homepage. My book, Coming to Berlin, is still available in good bookshops or via the publisher's website, Velocity Press. And Audio Technica are the sponsors of Lost and Sound. The global but family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, they make studio quality, yeah, affordable products because they believe the high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnica.com. Check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning, the end of every episode of Lost Thems Sound is by Tom Giddens. So, yeah, there we are. Thanks for listening. I hope whatever you're doing today, you're having a really good one, and yeah, chat too.